Father and son send iPhone and camera into space

Luke Geissbuhler could be hailed as one of the most creative dads after designing a space craft with his seven-year-old son, Max, to send a camera into space.

The video which came back resembles satellite footage taken

by a state-of-the-art NASA camera and a telescopic lens. But this amazing video was actually filmed by just an iPhone and a HD video camera.

The innovative forty-year-old dad and his son designed the space craft out of a takeaway box attached to a balloon and parachute, and when the weather looked clear sent it into space from their launch site (a park) in Newburgh, New York.

The mobile phone and camera survived 100 mph winds,temperatures of -60’C and reached 19 miles high, followed by a descent speed of 150 mph.

Not only that but it survived the fall, aided by a parachute, and the amateur scientists managed to recover it with help from the GPS tracking system on the iPhone. Amazingly, it touched down just 30 miles from

the launch.

When the pair managed to regain the footage from the flight – which lasted 100 minutes and reached more than 100,000 feet, they were worried whether the device had captured any images. Geissbuhler said, “When we watched the first footage, we thought if we just see black we are going to freak. We were totally out of our minds when we saw the footage. It was more than we were even hoping for.”

Geissbuhler said he got the idea for the project because he is always looking for fun ideas to share with his son. With this he’s got to be in good stead for the best dad of the year prize, and puts the rest to shame.